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APA, 25 May 2017

“European countries are concerned about incidents on the line of contact in the Karabakh conflict zone, leading to human casualties,” said European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman David McAllister in Yerevan, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

According to him, the EU calls on the parties to resume talks without preconditions on the basis of the proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group.

 “The status quo (in Karabakh) is fragile. This conflict has no military solution. A long-term settlement based on international law is needed. The EU supports the efforts of the Minsk Group in this direction, urging the parties to observe the cease-fire and their commitments for a peaceful settlement of the conflict,” the head of the committee said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in December 1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.